


the sound of silence

by droppingdroplets



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Depression, Manipulation, TommyInnit-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28108209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/droppingdroplets/pseuds/droppingdroplets
Summary: When exile puts his relationships in isolation, Tommy learns that sometimes it's better to be alone.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 122





	the sound of silence

In spite of Tommy’s best efforts, Logstedshire is quiet.

It doesn’t mean to be – it hasn’t needed to be anything until the first footsteps stopped on the ocean shore and started anew here. Tommy just _needs_ it to be anything other than it is now: a loose arrangement of murmuring ocean waves, restless leaves and his own mistimed footsteps; orchestrated for an audience of nobody. Except now there is somebody, and he’s going to scream until his voice goes hoarse if that’s what it takes to be rid of the quiet.

Yet he hesitates, the breath held in his throat like an unstruck match. He’s used to screaming words; without anybody around he finds himself at a loss for them. Nerves shot and aching, each breath stings with a hurt too big for words. He’s terrified of what he’ll hear if he gives voice to it.

(He’s terrified of making it real.)

So he keeps quiet. Struggles to ground himself to anything else – the grass digging into his feet, the rain draped over him, the bitter blood on his tongue from a bleeding cheek and the sweet saccharine scent of flowers from the hillside. Everything is happening to him on delay; he stumbles with sea-sick legs and keeps expecting the fields of grass to end, marked by a pale smile. His feet are miles away, but his mind is still back there: sat on a bench; stood on a wall.

_There’s nothing_ , he realizes, burying the disbelief as self-preservation surfaces. With no words to back-track on he retraces his steps instead, allowing him a better look of the world he’s been left with. It’s not that much different; his ears ring with the same buzzing melody. His world has blown up in his face, and he’s waiting for the chaos to settle into something sensible. He’s waiting for Tubbo. It’s not that different.

Except it is.

He’s no longer facing towards imminent destruction, now his back is to it. He’s soaked with rain and the threat of blood from Dream’s earlier handling, though the exposed threads of his shirt make it hard to tell them apart. Somehow, Tubbo’s words hurt worse. It’s not that different. Tommy has survived Wilbur, has survived Techno, has survived exile and betrayal before. It’s not that different.

Except it is.

“Tommy?”

Tommy’s shriek burns his throat like sun-scorched sand; it’s echoed with much less alarm. Ghostbur’s footsteps haven’t made a sound, his approach silent until he’s so uncomfortably close that Tommy can almost see right through him.

“Did I scare you?” Ghostbur asks – he sounds the same, except he doesn’t. “I didn’t mean to, although you made a very funny scream. You were just standing there for a while and I thought ‘ _oh, it’s been a while, maybe I should keep him company,’_ but then it started getting late and I thought _‘maybe I should say something,’-”_

“Thanks,” Tommy says, strangled. “’Cept not really, you scared the shit out of me, _never_ do that again, I swear -”

“I’m sorry.” Ghostbur says, sounding quite happy with himself. “I’ll try not to, but I really didn’t mean to. I didn’t know how else to move you.”

Tommy feels remarkably out of place, with this conversation as much as everything else. “Move me? To – to where – what for?”

Ghostbur makes a feeble gesture to the dirt hut behind him.

“No,” Tommy says immediately. He sounds sick to his own ears, struck with the sudden pang for _home_.

His brother spreads his arms in a way that’s likely supposed to communicate peace. After watching that gesture prelude too many disasters in his life, like the curtains opening up a stage, Tommy isn’t all that inclined to take it as such. “I know that you want to go back, but we’re staying here for at least one night, aren’t we? I’m going to build a vacation home, but it’s getting late, and you’re kind of…”

Tommy stares at the dirt. “Dream built that.”

Ghostbur nods, clapping his hands in celebration of the memory. Tommy would much rather forget. Ghostbur must be saying something else but Tommy can’t hear it, the last of what he’d brought with him – the last, cobbled together pieces of home – still ringing in his ears (because of Dream). It’s a pitiful cry in comparison to L’manburg’s dying scream (because of -). He knows he won’t be able to forget it. He wonders when he’ll stop being able to hear it.

“What the _fuck_ .” Tommy snaps, revelling in the way Ghostbur’s attention snaps to him. Tommy’s been haunted by the memories of what Wilbur was before; this isn’t that different, just different pieces. “This isn’t… oh, this isn’t – _what the fuck_?”

“I’m going to build something much nicer,” Ghostbur decides. “But this’ll do for the night, won’t it?”

The night is already approaching; Tommy has nobody and nothing prepared. _F_ _irst night_ , he thinks, a little hysterically; the line to compliment the punch he’d been sent off with.

“One night,” Tommy swears. “One night just to sleep in that shitty little shit-hole and _that’s it_ . I’ll fucking wake up early to get out of it as soon as possible, that’s a _promise –_ we’ll get shit done, and then we’ll go back, _that’s a fucking promise_.”

Recent evidence speaks to the contrary of his certainty. He’s on a streak of losing when it comes to conversations, and now he has nothing to act upon to back him up, but he’s not done yet.

The last person left to try and convince is himself, after all.

“Come on then,” Tommy says, reaching out to drag his brother along only to remember at the last minute he can’t. He’s quick to pull his hand back, shaking his head as he marches forward, looking back over his shoulder instead of blindly trusting Ghostbur to follow. “You don’t sleep, do you? Doesn’t matter, you can work on whatever the fuck it is later. I’ve got a favour to ask of you.”

Ghostbur follows him outside the rain, but doesn’t follow his lead in sitting down. Tommy sets his back against a corner, putting as much distance between himself and the door as possible, wishing that his scowl was sharp enough to dissuade any approaching monsters from trying their luck. With nothing, the odds were in their favour.

“I’ll do a favour for you, Tommy.” Ghostbur says, lying down a few inches off the ground. “Of course I will. What is it?”

“Can you sing something?” Tommy asks, the mud almost soft enough against his back. “I don’t know if I can fall asleep if all I can hear is them monsters being pricks.”

Ghostbur hums in consideration, a series of notes that get lost in his thoughts. “I think I can do that. Is there a song I should know?”

“I didn’t have one in mind.” Tommy shrugs. “Just… whatever you want, I guess.”

Ghostbur nods, beginning a pale imitation of songs that tug on Tommy’s heartstrings. Trying not to listen too closely he closes his eyes, turning away to put some distance between himself and the ghost of his brother, trying to place himself back in a time where things were different. Where the company was real, and was more than just intangible voices.

Tommy tries to listen to something far away, to find the sound of his brother’s guitar. All he can hear is the string of a bow loosening, striking deep in his heart.

He doesn’t sleep.

<>

  
  


Tommy survives the first night. Most of the gifts people leave for him don’t make it once morning comes.

At first they bring a tentative hope, proof that he’s not alone. He’s not sure what else to think of it – for once he has to take them at face-value; food for the sake of food rather than taste-testing and a convenient excess, an end-chest left buried instead of out for anyone to open – but he reckons it’s a good enough start.

Dream had left him with a stack of obsidian. Tommy had burned it as soon as he had the chance.

Dream comes back with a handful of TNT. Tommy wonders if keeping it would’ve made a difference.

Dream is quick to teach him that things here won’t be easy – but then again, when have things ever been? Tommy is quick to learn, and so he starts over every morning. That doesn’t stop him from taking what he can until he has something to prove that he’s gaining ground, as little as he wants to move on from home. Chirp is a reminder, a victory worth the loss of any other progress he’s made that day, a gift to himself as he presses his ear against the jukebox until the echoes still haunting him become an undercurrent drowned out by the ocean.

Tommy is a quick learner: he comes to expect surprises and tries to converse with his surroundings. He tunes his hearing so that the ocean can reach him from further away, he commits to memory what walking sounds like on the grass and stone and sand. He hums his new song until it follows him into sleep, and he wakes to find that there’s no answers to his calls.

Loneliness catches up to him despite his best attempts to outrun it; he wonders why people keep giving him things he can’t keep, and he wonders why he feels like he’s decorating his own grave with their tributes. Every morning he stands on the edge as his progress is buried, and every night he wants to go back further. It’s easy to let things go when he hasn’t held onto them to begin with, but he holds onto his hopes and keeps it out of reach in Dream’s company.

He survives a whole week. He develops habits. Of them, greeting Dream is one – he always waits for Tommy to speak first.

Of his gifts, the best is Ranboo’s company.

(Dream can’t take that away from him.)

Small blessings come in the form of squids finding their way to the shoreline; Tommy has never needed to keep ink on hand, but before long his fingertips are dark with smudges as the words caged in his throat find freedom on pages. He’s heard despite the shaking of his hand, and he repeats the replies under his breath until the words manifest a semblance of company, tangible even when Ranboo goes home. He needs it as his days grow longer from a lack of sleep, blending with the nights until his time is measured in other ways: days since someone last visited, hours until he buries the progress he’s dug up.

“Hey, Ranboo.” Tommy says, measuring the non-existent flow of time in the Nether by the steps towards their goals until they’re forced to party ways. “What kind of things do you like?”

“Uh,” Ranboo says, his face peering around the corner of a corridor of netherrack. “That’s… a rather vague question to ask, are we talking about any specifics here?”

“I’m not sure,” Tommy admits. “I was just wondering: if you could be given anything in the world, what would you _like_? Forget all the shit about, like, power and fame and – well, unless you like being powerful and famous, but if it was between that and say, a really good picture, would you like the picture more?”

Ranboo pauses to consider both the question and they’re path they’re upon, trying to make sense of both. “I’d probably like the picture more, but I don’t know if I’d take it over power and fame if I had the option.”

“You don’t.” Tommy says. “Sorry to break the news to you, it was purely hypothetical.”

“Ah,” Ranboo says solemnly, though it only lasts for a moment as they come across a landmark of hastily placed cobblestone. “Is there a point in asking what you’d like then? Wait, why is this even a question?”

“Curiosity, Ranboo. And, I – uh, people keep… leaving me presents, and there’s not much I can really do about that, but I thought about maybe doing the same? But I can’t just go and leave them shit like they do to me, so most of my ideas were kind of thrown out the window and I’m trying to think of something that’ll work and you haven’t been very helpful.”

Ranboo shrugs, “You didn’t ask me to be helpful. You asked me what kind of things I liked. Though, uh, I suppose I could try and be helpful, if you wanted.”

Tommy laughs as they make their way out of the caverns, shaking his head as the netherrack that had been looming over them opens up into a hollow plain connected by haphazard bridges. His gaze lingers in the wrong direction, following his thoughts as he says, “Yeah, yeah – maybe you could ask some people what they’d like? I’ll figure something out, I just wanna make sure it catches their attention, you know? Something they’ll remember. Think you can help me with that?”

“Okay,” Ranboo says, hands fluttering with nervousness. “But maybe you shouldn’t – let’s not walk backwards, okay?”

Tommy laughs again, a worn sound, but obliges in pausing his step so that Ranboo can catch up and start leading with a much slower pace. He’ll take all the time he can get, “Sure, sure, if you say so. Ruin my fun, why don’t you?”

“I don’t think falling into lava would be very fun.”

“No,” Tommy says, scuffing his shoes as they walk. “I s’pose not.”

He doesn’t need Ranboo’s help in the end, he figures it out with Ghostbur and Dream. He doesn’t have much to offer, that much is obvious by people’s hesitance to stay. Tommy learns to make a cake, to set out space and to plan what he’s going to speak. In the end, he keeps it all contained on a piece of paper, hands restless with anticipation as he tries to shake away the sand.

Tommy doesn’t hesitate in handing the invitations over, but there’s a stutter to his step as his hands almost pass through his brother’s. There’s something familiar about the sight of shadow-painted fingertips. But this is different.

Ghostbur smiles at him, oblivious. He must see something though, because he’s the one who hesitates, taking a second to promise, “I’ll be back.”

Tommy nods, faltering, and turns his back on his brother first to wash his hands in the cold ocean water. Dream follows him, patting his shoulder before following suit with a, “See you at the party, Tommy.”

Dream’s the only one who comes.

<>

  
  


His older brother tells him: _“Let’s be the bad guys.”_

Justice is a sword through his heart; blood rushing to fill the cracks that had become his love for a nation claimed by war. The last thing Tommy sees of Wilbur isn’t his coat, too dark to show any blood-stains, isn’t the wave of his hands as he bids adieu.

The last thing Tommy sees of Wilbur is Philza pulling him close, wings furling as though he can shield either of them from themselves; from each other.

His older brother tells him: _“Good things don’t happen to heroes.”_

Behind him the sun is bleeding out, pooling into a red silhouette. Techno revels in the art of it, stood on the edge of the horizon, watching them fall as the ground caves in.

Tommy tries to tell him he doesn’t want to be a hero. His willingness to get up and fight back says otherwise.

Tommy tries to tell them: “ _I don’t want this – I never wanted this.”_

Over the echoes of the explosions, over the quietness of a final breath, he isn’t heard.

<>

  
  


“You’ve just given me the power of flight.”

In his hands the trident is cold, bespattered with ripples of magic that pull the waves and push him with a force uprooted from the depths of the seabed. The chill of it is a welcome relief, preserving a sense of curiosity and wonder for him to wade in, launching him high into the air until he can see the outline of Logstedshire, until he can see the old portal in the distance, until he can’t see Dream at all.

Flight is a familiar concept. He’s grown up with it, after all – the leagues Philza has traversed and reduced to a few absent words, the few inches of air that keep Ghostbur’s feet from ever truly sticking to the ground. He can see the appeal. He can see the clouds, a heavy blanket across the sky, and can almost feel his hand pushing against them.

He’s pulled some of the water up with him and it scatters around him, wings of rainfall. Weightless, he struggles to reach higher, to reach a point where he can see where the land isn’t a stranger. He reaches, but finds nothing other than his own reflection coming back for him.

The pit of water underneath catches him, the lazy waves of the ocean embracing him with a bitter chill. When he surfaces, it’s to Dream watching him with a smile, hood pulled up instead of using one of the parasols as he leans over to better watch Tommy use the trident to pull him to the shore.

“I know what we can do for a party trick,” Tommy declares, as Dream helps him find his balance on stable ground.

Dream laughs and Tommy finds himself laughing too. It’s just the two of them, but it’s more than he’s had and he’s learning to make do, that this is better than racing Ranboo in the Nether and louder than Ghostbur tending to Logstedshire. He’s felt more in a day than he has in a month, the devastation quietly buried under waves of growing excitement.

There’s a thrill, in keeping Dream’s company.

There’s a thrill in being wanted.

Tommy doesn’t get to keep the power of flight. Dream shares his channelling trident instead, the iron plate of his mask unflinching to the lightning that strikes it as Tommy puts it to the test. Anger burns hot in him, and the cry of the lightning is the closest thing he’s felt to alive since what feels like lifetimes ago. Each lash against Dream is a leash unto Tommy, until the knot in his chest unravels as a delighted laugh catches in his throat. His cheeks hurt from smiling. He can’t tell if it’s because his face had almost forgotten how.

He rests it underneath the discs and the compass, an unspoken promise resolved in his heart. For what, he’s suddenly not certain, hands scorched from the storm and shaking as he closes the lid. He takes a step back, wiping the water from his face before deciding to build a fire to dry himself off.

Dream’s only just left, but Tommy’s missing him already.

He’s not sure why the thought makes him feel sick with dread.

<>

  
  


Tommy learns a lot about himself in exile. He learns that creepers don’t faze him as much as they used to, that his memories are filled with half-forgotten songs, that he’s a social eater. He learns how to build bridges, he learns how to break them – L’manburg has a head-start over Logstedshire and several other advantages too; he hasn’t yet learnt what’s happened to the home he thought he’d known, but the disconnect grows with each passing day.

While he loses an appetite for food, his skin is starved for contact. Dream doesn’t seem to mind, but he leaves it to Tommy to voice first. He tries not to. He’s not sure why he maintains the distance.

He learns that his eyes are getting duller, that his hair is getting longer, that his time is spent half-asleep instead of wide awake.

He feels like he’s dying.

Dream watches him with a smile, not minding when he can’t muster the energy to return it.

Tommy learns what his buttons are, his emotions flicking like a switch that leaves him blinded and overwhelmed. Dream is the one constant, the one anchor-point; Tommy learns when he can push his luck and when he needs to pull back, he earns how they best work together and he learns how to make him laugh.

He knows he’s dying.

<>

  
  


As soon as he looks over the edge, the lava catches his gaze. Tommy tries to avoid it, tries to look past it, but can only see the sizzling soft pebbles of the netherrack he’s kicked in his haste. His hands pull the pickaxe towards his chest like a shield, but it does nothing to protect him from the dread that drops from his heart to his stomach to his feet.

That hadn’t been Dream.

That hasn’t been… he’d thought it be – who else was he supposed to think it’d be? Tommy had recognized the fear before he’d recognized anything else, had swung before he thought to stop himself. The Nether laughs at him as he listens out for a disruption in the lava, but he hears the whispered curses first.

“Jack?” Tommy calls, not entirely sure if he’s expecting a response. He could be hearing things as well as seeing things; reality is a bit of a blur that has yet to come into focus.

Below him, the lava ripples. It’s an odd sight; the yellow crumbs of a golden apple getting swallowed like raindrops surface before the man himself does, who turns his head up and takes another bite, breaking the not-quite silence between them, “You, uh, you mined underneath me, and now I’m in…”

“Uh.” That hadn’t been Dream, who can survive falling being struck by lightning, or falling into lava. _“Uh oh.”_

_Why did I do that?_ Tommy thinks, numb and dumb as he watches. It’s a question he’s been asking himself a lot lately, but he’s yet to find the answer and he’s not expecting to come across it anytime soon. He has more pressing matters to focus on, yet he’s caught in a wave of vertigo. _Why did I do that? What’s happening to me? Why is this happening to me – what’s happening to me- what am I doing?_

“What the fuck?” Is all Tommy can manage. He can’t hear himself speak.

He doesn’t feel scared any more. He doesn’t feel much of anything – not even the dryness of his ears as he moves away from the ledge and blinks rapidly. His portal is right next to him, but there’s nothing to be gained from going through it and he’s losing time staring without comprehending anything in front of him.

It’s been a few hours since Dream last visited. A day since he’d torn apart the path bridging Logstedshire to L’manburg. He realizes he’s counting his losses and finally tastes blood in his mouth, knocking him loose and allowing him to finally move.

It’s too late. For what he’s not sure, but he resists another glance down at the lava and thinks he might have an idea.

_It’s alright_ , he tells himself.

Dream’s the only one who keeps coming back anyway.

<>

Logstedshire is quiet, because Logstedshire is dead. Tommy’s the only thing left alive within it.

_There’s nothing_ , he realizes. And then: _why did I do this?_

<>

  
  


Dream tells him: _“_ _You’re the only one who won’t listen to me_.”

Tommy finds himself at a crossroads, struck with a sudden thought – _since when had he ever listened to anybody?_ There’s a wall in his memories when he looks back on his exile, but stood atop of it is his best friend, separating him from a home that grows further away each day.

Tubbo tells him: _“You couldn’t even listen to me.”_

“Oh,” Tommy says to himself. Above him the stars are watching; he’s the closest he’s ever been to them, and it’s with a heavy resolve that he turns himself away. _“Oh.”_

Tommy’s a threat of fortitude. He’s stood atop a tower as the world turns from night to day and the dawning realization lights up his world until his eyes burn even with his hands pressed against them. His memories aren’t that different, except they are, cast in a new light and even his laughter isn’t the same as he falls down to his knees and stares in the water. His reflection is much the same; he reaches out with a sour vindication at the thought that of all the weapons at Dream’s disposal, he’d tried to use Tommy to get the job done.

Dream, who won’t be coming back for more than a few hours, more than a few days, even. Tommy has _time_ and he’s up on his feet before he can start wasting it, stung with a manic energy that carries him back to where he’d started, scars scorched into the earth.

Ignoring the mine he goes straight for the trees, wanting the assurance of cover with numerous exits and sweeping up the logs. Despite his shaking hands, he’s well-practised in shaping unruly materials in a hurry, breaking the logs down into planks and sticks and getting ahead of himself in his impatience to twist twine out of what little the ground has left. Rocks are easier to pick up, and it all comes together from his demanding hands.

Tommy secures the twine with a pull of his teeth, swinging a few times to ensure the tension of the knot will endure. It’s hardly the best, but it’ll do. He’ll take what he can get.

Nothing else is left. This time he’s prepared for that, armed with a sword and stubborn determination as he backs into the canopy of the trees. He doesn’t look back as he starts to walk, setting his own frantic pace in the first direction that catches his eye, cautious only to leave as little of a trail as possible. Sunlight washes over him; the start of a new day. Listening out he can hear footsteps as he starts to run, waking restless leaves until the ocean is a whisper behind him and then nothing at all.

He doesn’t look back. This time, things will be different.


End file.
